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To
love and to hold due reverence for all people and
all things, but to stand in awe or fear of nothing
save our own wrong-doing.
To
recognize the good lying at the heart of all people,
of all things, waiting for expression all in its own
good way and time.
To
know that it is the middle ground that brings
pleasure and satisfaction, and that excesses have to
be paid for always with heavy and sometimes
frightful costs.
To
know that work, occupation, something definite and
useful to do, is one of the established conditions
of happiness in life.
To
realize always clearly that thoughts are forces,
that like creates like, and that to determine one's
thinking therefore is to determine one's own life.
To
take and to live always in the attitude of mind that
compels gladness, looking for and thus drawing to us
continually the best in all people and all things,
being thereby the creators of our own good fortunes.
To
know that the ever-conscious realization of the
essential oneness of each life with the Divine Life
is the highest of all knowledge, and that to open
ourselves as opportune channels for the Divine Power
to work in and through us is the open door to the
highest attainment, and to the best there is in
life.
In
brief--to be honest, to be fearless, to be just,
joyous, kind. This will make our part in
life's great and as yet not fully understood play
one of greatest glory, and we need then stand in
fear of nothing--life nor death; for death is
life. Or rather, it is the quick transition to
life in another form; the putting off of the old
coat and the putting on of the new; a passing not
from light to darkness, but from light to light
according as we have lived here; a taking up of life
in another form where we leave it off here; a part
in life not to be shunned or dreaded or feared, but
to be welcomed with a glad and ready smile when it
comes in its own good way and time.
from
On the Open Road
1908
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